Beginnings

If you’ve read my About the Blog page, you saw that I wrote my thesis on a topic related to death and dying, particularly as it pertains to the Christian. I started this blog as a way to keep myself motivated to continue studying, so I wanted to tell you a little more about my thesis work and where I’m thinking my research will take me—or us, if you come along with me here on The Unhurried Chase (don’t forget to subscribe!). 

My thesis title was “I Am But Dust And Ashes”: Pride, Humility, and the Appropriate Response to Man’s Creation.” It was my attempt to understand what being made of dust means for man’s life and relationship with God. At the start of the writing process, I was interested in human decay. At most Christian funerals the primary focus is the resurrection, and the abundant life in heaven. To understate it, this is a good thing. But, why, if God intended our sole focus to be the risen body and the eternity to come, do human bodies decay at all—surely we would miss our loved one just as much if they evaporated into thin air at death. My thesis, I thought, would be a good chance to learn what we might be missing by speeding so quickly past this disconcerting part of human life.

After some preliminary research, it became clear the root of all of these questions was what scripture has to say about man’s creation from dust. All other questions about funeral practices, and grief, and dismissive sympathy cards are downstream from this question—what can we learn from scripture about man’s creation from dust and its implications for mankind?

I started, fittingly, with creation. I undertook a close reading of Genesis 1–3, trying to understand what is being communicated to readers regarding Adam’s creation from dust, and subsequent exile and death. Three things came into focus through this reading: first, the dust that man was formed from was lowly, barren, and worthless; secondly, God formed Adam with special intention; third, man’s creation from dust was an integral part of man’s relation to God. If man’s first sin was pride, as a number of church fathers believed, then Adam and Eve’s move to cover their bodies after their fall could be read as a move of shame and embarrassment to hide any hint of their bodies’ lowly origin from one who was so entirely superior to them. If this reading is accurate, Adam and Eve’s exile was closely tied to their perception of their body of dust. Instead of drawing near to God as they realized the humility intrinsic to their physical bodies, they hid, and God sent them out in exile to the dust from which Adam was created.

Next, I wanted to see if there were other passages in scripture where man was confronted with dust, and how these passages might relate to what I was seeing in Genesis. I soon realized that dust is a very common image in scripture, and that there was a pattern emerging from the text.

I saw that in general, dust was used as an image in circumstances when men were prideful, either attempting to mimic God’s creation from dust in an idolatrous way (for example Babel, or the story of the Golden Calf), or directly defying God (as in the case of the Pharaoh of the Exodus), or when circumstances when the people of God were suffering or witnessing judgement (as seen in the stories of Abraham, Job, and Hannah). 

The second pattern was that in each case God drew near—just as he had sought out Adam and Eve in the garden. 

The prideful and idolatrous seemed to try to distance themselves from God and his offered relationship. As a result, they were met with the scattering hand of judgement, led to exile and destruction—scattered like chaff before the wind.

However, the righteous found their lowly origin as a reason to turn to God, and were even comforted by it. Job and Abraham both turned to God for relief or comfort using the phrase, “I who am but dust and ashes.” Hannah, leaving her beloved son in the hands of worthless men, praises the God who creates and raises man from the dust and the ash heap. In each case God was near, and comforted them.

The only adequate reaction to the realization that one is like chaff in the face of a gale, then, is to seek shelter in the Rock, like Abraham, Job, and Hannah. When man relates to his body of dust humbly and turns to God for comfort and shelter against the gale, he is met with care and comfort. He is not scattered like the proud, but is sustained, held together, and kept near.

This is the work that we see in the incarnated Son of God, who took on a body of dust in order to undo Adam and Eve’s exile, to gather what had been scattered, and to become the cornerstone of a building made not by human hands, for man’s glory, but a temple made by and for the glory of God.

So that’s it. That’s a summary of my thesis. What do you think? I’m hoping to adapt portions of it into blog posts or articles to post both here and perhaps publish elsewhere. Let me know if there is anything that you think is particularly worth reading about in more detail.